BloombergMark Gurman revealed today that Apple has developed new speakers equipped with “screens and cameras,” suggesting that we might see a future HomePod-like device that has a built-in screen and a camera feature for FaceTiming and other features.
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Faced with these rumors, MacRumors collaborator Steve Moser was combing the beta code of tvOS 14.5 and checked that Apple has added FaceTime and iMessage frames, along with a new AVFCapture frame related to image capture.
You may be wondering what the tvOS code has to do with the HomePod, but in April 2020 Apple started using tvOS as the basis for software running on the HomePod instead of iOS. watchOS, tvOS, and the software running on the omeHomePod are variants of iOS, but each differs by the device the software runs on with unique interfaces, APIs, and more.
This means that the features included in tvOS are also included in the HomePod software, as they have the same base code. Therefore, the frameworkFaceTime, iMessage, and image capture frames added to tvOS to tvOS 14.5 could actually be designed for a future omeHomePod that has a screen and a camera, as Gurman described.
HomePod and HomePod mini can already use FaceTime audio, but the FaceTime framework discovered in 14.5 beta is different from any code related to the existing audioFaceTime audio function. The frameworks are in the beta version of tvOS 14.5 and in the beta 14.5 program omeHomePod available to select testers.
Gurman says no “imminent release” is planned for the camera-equipped speaker, so this product may not appear. It is also quite possible that the iMessage, FaceTime and AVFCapture frames introduced in tvOS 14.5 have a completely different purpose that is not completely related to a HomePod and can remain hidden in the code or be used for an unspecified feature that reaches the ‘Apple TV or’ HomePod ‘in the future.
In the semi-related news, the 14.5 beta version also suggests that Apple might be developing some sort of trivia game for Siri, where Siri provide could provide trivia questions for users to answer. This is labeled “Siri Edutainment” in the code, but it is unclear whether it will be a built-in Siri function or support for a third-party product.